Facilities such as malls, airports, train stations, and even smaller establishments such as grocery stores, typically have fixtures, such as display shelves, booths, and counters, that must be accessible, attractive and convenient to the consumer, yet also must be protected from damage from a constant onslaught of customers, not to mention employees, cleaning crews and maintenance personnel. The potential for repeated, costly damage to fixtures from people, some of whom may be relatively unskilled or inattentive, yet operating heavy equipment, is ever present.
A grocery store, for example, often has low, open refrigeration cabinets for display of perishable goods such as dairy products, meat and fish. Behind the lightweight sheet metal facades of these cabinets lies delicate internals--compressors, condensers, cooling coils, and associated control circuitry such as thermostats and temperature sensors--that are required to refrigerate the goods. The facade provides minimal protection, and there are many opportunities for damage. A careless shopper with a full shopping cart, or a stockboy with a heavily loaded pallet cart (which can weigh upwards of 1000 pounds), or cleaning person operating a self-propelled industrial floor cleaner, can, via one careless collision, do damage to the cabinet. Particularly vulnerable are the cooling coils, which are routed throughout the cabinet and which contain a volatile and expensive refrigerant. Even if the internals are not damaged, the appearance of the cabinet can, over time, suffer considerably. Fixtures are often designed, not as industrial fortresses, but as an aesthetically pleasing and convenient part of a total package for marketing goods. Yet protection is a must, if costly repairs are to be avoided. Similar considerations apply to less sophisticated fixtures, such as checkout counter, or even a wall. Constant bumping from a vacuum cleaner can leave dings, dents, and gouges that are unsightly, necessitating constant and tedious minor repairs.
Known in the art are protective rails installed around the periphery of a fixture or structure. These rails typically comprise a base member incorporating an abrasion-resistant plastic strip that is available in many colors for matching the surrounding color scheme. Often, floor mounted base rails are mounted approximately 5" to 8" above a floor, and are removable. Rails are not limited to installation in floors, however, and can disposed about, or attached to, a structure so as to best protect the structure from damage. For example, a rail system can be attached to a wall or other structure. Rail systems are typically modular, and may have a limited number of lengths of straight sections and of curvatures of corner sections available. A particular rail system for protecting a structure or fixture is built-up from available modular rail sections and corners. One example of a known protection system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,149, 569, issued on Sep. 22, 1992 to David S. McCue, and herein incorporated by reference.
Corner sections of base rail systems present greater difficulties. Typically, a limited number of pre-molded corner angles are available, the most popular angle being 90 degrees. A base rail system that cannot closely conform to the contours of a fixture wastes valuable space, creates an enclosed area difficult to access, and is unduly obtrusive, thereby limiting access to the fixture and may present a tripping hazard. Similar considerations apply to a wall mounted rail system that does not readily conform to the angle at which two walls meet.
Furthermore, because the corners are the most frequently struck part of a rail system, they often abrade and become unsightly from the constant collision and scraping. Often there is a seam where the corner piece joins to straight components of the rail system. Objects scraping along the corner can catch the seam and tear the plastic covering from either the straight modular section or, if present, from the modular corner, creating a hazard to the consumer. In addition, because they protrude, corners are often directly struck and thus subject to high impact forces, damaging and necessitating replacement of the corner.
Though straight sections of existing rail system are not as troublesome as corners, there is room for improvement. The rail can be damaged, and rendered unsightly, by direct or head-on, impacts. As students of elementary physics are aware, the forces generated in stopping an object that has a given momentum are determined by the time rate change of the object's momentum. Stopping the object immediately, as when it encounters a rigid rail, results in high forces; stopping it more slowly results in lower forces, but can require letting the object travel a distance. A rigid, non-yielding rail stops a colliding object, such as a floor scrubber, quite suddenly, subjecting the rail to potentially damaging collision forces. An ideal protective rail system would include an effective cushioning, or shock absorbing, system that yields more gradually, while providing a retarding force to decelerate the colliding object less drastically. Collision forces are thus reduced. Known rail systems typically employ a tough, abrasion resistant strip attached to a base. However, such strips are often installed such that violent collisions therewith by objects can cause the strip to detach from the base, as well as damage the lightweight base and the fixture or structure that the protection system is designed to protect.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a robust fixture protection system that withstands collisions with objects.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a corner for a fixture protection system that is less susceptible to abrasion and damage.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a more versatile fixture protection system corner for accommodating a wider variety of fixture angles.
Yet a further object of the present invention is to provide a fixture protection system that lessens the likelihood of damage to protective members of the system or to an object that collides therewith.